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SCHOOLARTSMAGAZINE.COM 7
Co-Editor's Letter
Andrew D. Watson, fine arts instructional specialist for Alexandria City Public
Schools in Alexandria, Virginia.
T
hese are exciting times to be an art educator! For too
long, art has been regarded as an add-on, great but
not necessary to the education of our youth. Across
the nation, businesses, parents, and other educators
are starting to see the vital nature of what we do—how
we inspire and motivate our students. They see how we
deepen learning and nurture the Five Cs and higher-order
learning. Entire districts are adopting arts integration and
STEAM programs. Other educators are turning to us to
help them understand Project-Based Learning (PBL) and
Performance-Based Assessment (PBA). But are we equipped
to lead? Do we know why what we do is so vital? How
does art connect, and to what?
Let's look at two important interdisciplinary approa-
ches—arts integration and STEAM. In arts integration, the
arts are used to deliver non-arts content while including
authentic arts learning. This is accomplished primarily
through instructional art strategies. This includes prac-
tices like learning language-arts skills such as inference
by looking at and talking about paintings, or sequencing
through creating a comic strip. It includes demonstrating
knowledge of science or social studies concepts by creat-
ing a tableau or choreographing an interpretive dance. In
arts integration, the arts infuse every lesson and unify the
school day.
STEAM is similar, but art holds a different position
of importance on the programmatic level. Here, art is
equal to the other individual STEAM disciplines, and in
a non-arts classroom may not be present in every STEAM
project. However, art is still valued highly in authentic
STEAM classrooms, and along with engineering, is often
the avenue to make the lessons hands-on.
Teaching strategies such as PBL and PBA are also
important topics for art teachers. While these two strate-
gies are not unique to art and do not require art content
to implement, they are tightly connected to art pedagogy.
While most art teachers do not follow PBL exactly, most of
us teach primarily through projects. PBL refines this but is
very similar to what we already do. PBA is similar. Most
non-art teachers assess primarily through multiple choice,
right-or-wrong questions. This is anathema to most art
teachers! We know that art is ambiguous and has far more
right answers than wrong ones. Most of us never stopped
using rubrics to quantify qualitative data, and now every-
one else wants to figure out how to do it!
So, what does art bring to non-arts content? Most non-arts
teachers acknowledge that art brings engagement. Research
also shows that it helps students who have difficulty learn
-
ing through more "traditional" methods. The worst thing
you can do to a student who is having trouble learning
through ditto sheets is to give them more ditto sheets!
Art also teaches those soft skills that help students take
control of their learning and become deeper thinkers. Cri
-
tique and reflection teach students to become more resilient
and nurture a growth mindset. Coming up with multiple
ideas for a project and multiple solutions to an art problem
pushes students to become creative and critical thinkers.
However, art makes more than content and soft-skill
connections. It connects us to our humanity. Making and
expressing are fundamental to who we are as humans.
This transcends all cultures and time periods. It is just as
true in the Islamic Republic of Iran as in the State of Israel.
It was true more than 40,000 years ago when our ancestors
made the earliest known cave paintings, and it will be true
in millennia into the future when our descendants create
artwork that we cannot even dream of. This is because art
connects all.
andrew.watson@acps.k12.va.us